“What bomb?” Ushan worked his jaw back and forth, obviously stunned by the cuff to his ear.
Quinn gambled, throwing more cards than he actually had on the table. “I know Zamora has Baba Yaga.” He fell into easy Arabic. With his three-day growth of dark beard and copper skin, he could easily pass for someone from the Middle East.
Ushan’s eyes narrowed, trying to make sense of things. “Who are you?”
Quinn shot a glance at Ronnie, who attempted to comfort a hysterical Cathy in the far corner of the room. He shuddered to think what would have happened to her if they hadn’t decided to follow the Yemeni away from the party.
“I am the man who will cut out your worthless heart if you do not tell me what I want to know,” Quinn whispered, not entirely bluffing.
“If you want to kill me,” Ushan said, “you will have to get in line behind the Chechens.”
“The Chechens don’t have you here now,” Quinn said. “I do.” He acted disinterested, but took careful note of every word the Yemeni breathed.
“Yes.” Ushan smiled. “But you do not know this particular Chechen. He would—”
A loud whack, like someone hitting a softball, turned their attention to the door as it flew open. Quinn looked up to see a shotgun barrel pointing through the gap.
Thibodaux reacted immediately, bringing his forearm up under the barrel an instant after the first booming shot split the air inside the cramped hotel room. The Yemeni’s head burst, spilling onto the sheets. Grabbing the intruding shotgun’s fore end with his free hand, the big Cajun gave a hard yank and pulled the shooter, a balding man with a dirty blond beard, into the room. He used the butt of the weapon to smash the man in the face on the backstroke.
His lips pouring blood, the shooter rolled across the carpet, trying to access a pistol on his belt. Thibodaux held the shotgun to the side and used his Kimber to give the guy a double tap to the chest.
Quinn dove to the floor as more gunfire shattered the glass and tore the mini-blinds off the windows. Tires squealed in the parking lot. Car alarms began to honk and beep from the commotion.
Shotgun still in hand, Thibodaux did a quick peek out the open door. “Looks clear.” He turned back to Quinn. “You okay, l’ami?”
Quinn stood up, looking at Garcia. She nodded. “We’re okay,” he said.
Thibodaux pulled back the dead man’s shirt. He was bony and gaunt, and a crude eight-pointed star was tattooed on each skeletal shoulder, just above his collarbone. “Eastern Bloc mafia,” the Cajun said. “Could be Chechen. Tats are older, probably made in some Russian prison with ash and piss.”
“Not too much of a jump from Chechen Mafia to Chechen separatists,” Quinn said. “Guess this guy was right about them wanting to kill him.”
“Over the bomb?” Ronnie asked. “Do you think they saw us?” Ronnie stood up from where she’d used her own body to shield a hysterical Cathy.
Quinn set his mouth in a tight line.
“They sure enough saw him,” Thibodaux said, looking at the mess of blood, brain matter, and ears that had been Farris bin Ushan.
CHAPTER 20
Quinn turned on his phone while the plane from Miami was still rolling down the taxiway. There was a missed call from Bo.
He punched in the number and was relieved to hear his kid brother’s voice.
“Boaz Quinn,” he said, giving him the older sibling’s chiding tone. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for days.”
“What can I say?” Bo laughed. “My life of crime takes me places cell phones don’t work so well.” Quinn could hear the sun-bleached surfer attitude in his brother’s voice. Four years younger than Jericho, the unrepentant prodigal had left home after a not so stellar year at University of Alaska to start over in Texas. He’d landed on his feet, but square in the middle of a motorcycle club that dabbled in several lucrative, but not so legitimate, businesses. Not the academic that Jericho was, Bo was bull strong and incredibly smart. A natural leader, he worked and fought his way up through the ranks of his new club and found himself in charge in a matter of years.
“Your passport still valid?” Quinn asked. “Or did you have to surrender it to your probation officer?”
“Very funny,” Bo said. “As a matter of fact, I am clear to travel and free for the next few days.”
Quinn smiled at the thought of seeing his kid brother again, even under the circumstances of tracking down a nuclear bomb. “Have I got a deal for you,” he said. “I can’t talk about it on the phone, but how do you feel about Argentina?”
“He is walking toward baggage claim now,” a Japanese man wearing a tan golf jacket whispered. He stood in line at the Dunkin’ Donuts holding a newspaper under his arm. His black hair was moussed and combed up in the earnest businessman style. He ordered a coffee from the tired-looking black woman behind the counter as Quinn walked past, almost close enough to touch.
“I am interested in what an American OSI agent would be doing with a Japanese killing dagger,” a female voice answered over the earbud that was paired to the cell phone on his belt. “You know what to do.”
“Of course,” the Japanese man said. He tossed a five-dollar bill on the counter to pay for his coffee and fell in with the arriving passengers as they walked in small groups along the dimly lit hallway, past the ever-present construction that seemed to define Reagan Airport and down the escalator to baggage claim. For an international airport across the Potomac from the nation’s capitol, Reagan saw little traffic at this time of morning.
The Japanese man loitered near the carousel as if he was waiting for his own baggage. Quinn stood with his back to one of the large support columns inside the rail that separated the baggage area from the front walkway. His eyes were constantly on the move, flitting from one person to the next, as if sizing them up as potential threats or, the Japanese man couldn’t help but think, possible targets. There was no doubt in his mind that Quinn carried a weapon. As a government agent, he would have been allowed to fly with it — and men like this one did not walk around without weapons unless they were forced to do so. His black leather jacket was loose, so it was impossible to know if it was on his belt or under his arm, but he was definitely armed. Quinn’s demeanor, the predatory way in which he carried himself, spoke louder than any outline of a pistol under his clothing.
Truly dangerous men, the Japanese man thought, recognized others of their kind.
Quinn grabbed a camel-colored ballistic nylon duffel and turned toward the escalator to long-term parking. Following, but not too close, the Japanese man didn’t get on the escalator until Quinn neared the top. He’d already marked Quinn’s vehicle in the lot, and parked his own car nearby. It would be easy enough to follow him from a distance.
The Japanese man was halfway up the escalator, trapped between a large Sikh in a black turban and a group of Georgetown coeds dressed in droopy sweats, when Quinn met him, coming down the escalator on the other side.
Quinn spotted the tail at the baggage carousel. A compact Japanese man with neatly trimmed hair to match a military bearing loitered as if he had bags of his own, then left moments after Quinn without retrieving anything. Perhaps it was his earlier encounter with the bosozoku, but Quinn had become hyperaware of Japanese men.
With no way to know if the man sought to do him harm or just to test him, Quinn took three steps off the escalator, then turned to take the ride back down, meeting his pursuer face-to-face.